


Forgotten Savages

by ElixirBB



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark fic, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Moral Ambiguity, Sexual Content, a bit of violence, bamf!Molly, cursing, okay fine more than a little bit, please heed the warnings, this is a little bit AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:29:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElixirBB/pseuds/ElixirBB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes jumps from the roof of Bart's hospital and with her help, he survives it. Jim Moriarty shoots himself and with her help, he survives it. Molly Hooper is playing with fire. But everything has to burn eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten Savages

**Author's Note:**

> Another dark one. Heed the warnings. I’ve tried to make it clean and stuff, but just giving everyone a head’s up. 
> 
> Also: I love you all, seriously, all of you are so amazing and your support in everything I do is amazing. You make my heart swell. Another also: title is taken from the song Bones by Ms Mr, as seen below. It’s fantastic and I basically had it on loop while writing. Hope you all enjoy! And like always, any mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Her story starts with a birth.

 

(She has been told this story so many times; she can recite it by heart.)

 

There is a crowd of people taking up a hallway of a small hospital in Belfast, when suddenly there is a loud cry that pierces the air and a man, with auburn hair pokes his head out and beams “it’s a girl!”

 

There is celebration, cheers from the women and loud guffaws from the men (it doesn’t matter, in the end, they’re all told to quiet down, _this is a hospital you know, not a circus_.)

 

By the time the baby girl is cleaned and has been fed, most of the men, women and children have gone home, offering their congratulations and promising to visit the next day. All except one family.

 

They’re not blood relatives, never have been, never will be, but instead, they’re much stronger than blood could ever dictate. To this day, the story of how the two families met is a mystery, both fathers taking _that_ particular story to their graves. It doesn’t matter how they met or why they even stayed with each other, despite being so incredibly different, all that matters is that for a large amount of time, both families lived, breathed, laughed, cried and died with one another. But they’re not blood relatives (and in the end, she thinks it’s better that they aren’t because they mean so much more to each other this way.)

 

“What are you staring at, James?” Her father asks him.

 

James is five years old and stands on his tiptoes, hands gripping the crib tightly and staring at the little baby bundled up in pink. He doesn’t say anything; he just looks and cocks his head to the side, studying her. “She’s mine.” He states.

 

The two men laugh and the women coo. “You’ll protect her then?”

 

“She’s _mine_.” He repeats and there is haughtiness in his voice that insinuates that everyone else is the room is a moron. He turns his head back and stares at the baby girl, who is sleeping, blissfully unaware of the turn her life is going to take because of the five year old boy who laid a claim and never let it go. “What’d you name her?”

 

His father laughs; it booms and echoes (he was always such a loud _loud_ man.) “Look at `im, all possessive and he doesn’t even know her name. My boy, you’ve got a long way yet.”

 

“Mary.” Her mother answers. “Her name is Mary.”

 

James scrunches his nose and shakes his head. “Mary? How boring.” He presses his face against the crib and breathes in deeply, watching her small chest rise and fall rapidly. “No. _No_. Her name is _Molly_. She’s going to be _my_ Molly and I’m going to be her _Jim_.”

 

“That’s cute, Jim.” His mother says.

 

He stomps his feet, his shiny black shoes sparkling in the light of the room. “ _You_ can’t call me Jim. Only _Molly_ can.” He crosses his arms around his chest.

 

“James Moriarty, I know I taught you better manners.” His mother reprimands.

 

He turns his back on the adults and stares dutifully at the baby who continues to sleep. (Molly knows this next part, not because she remembers it, but because he’s repeated it to her over and over again until the words are burned into her heart, into her soul.) “I’ll protect you, Molly Hooper. I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you. You’re mine forever.”

* * *

(Sooner rather than later, Mary disappears and all the remains is Molly. _His Molly_. _Always Molly Hooper_.)

* * *

When she is ten years old, her mother dies.

 

Unofficially, it’s an accident. Officially, it’s a murder. Her father is distraught. She woke up to him thrashing the house, throwing glasses into the wall and screaming into the empty house, while pulling at his hair. His agony is palpable. His misery evident.

 

There is blood on his clothes and arms and he’s pale. His eyes are wild and livid. She’s seen her father angry, most of the time it’s directed at Jim who, for being five years older than her, spends an awful amount of time with her. Her father has tossed him out more than once, but Molly always lets him through her bedroom window (her father may be able to throw out Jim, but Molly could never _ever_ leave Jim.)

 

There are whispers about the Moriarty’s and her father. People at school don’t talk to her, mostly because she has an affinity for dead things and people but she overheard two boys talking about thugs and threats and something about IRA. (Molly didn’t pay attention; Molly never pays attention to things like that. They’re not dead and therefore Molly doesn’t particularly find that mere whispers and rumors have anything to offer her.)

 

She knows it’s her mother who’s dead because out of all the things her father destroys, he cradles a picture of her mother in his hands, gently, as if terrified to let it go. (Maybe he is. Maybe, all he’s ever been is a sad and terrified man pretending to live, Molly loves him regardless.) She knows it’s her mother who’s dead because if it weren’t, then her mother would be thudding down the stairs and pulling him into her arms and running her hands through his hair whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

 

( _When you love someone,_ her mother once told her, _you love all of them. All of their faults and eccentricities. When you love someone Molly, it consumes all of you and seeing them hurt is as if you’re being hurt yourself. Love, Molly, is not kind nor is it sweet. Real love, it burns_.)

 

“Mum is dead, isn’t she?” She asks her dad quietly, from her spot on the stairs.

 

He sniffles, wipes a bloodied arm across his nose and nods. “I’m going to kill the people who did this. And when I do, Molly, we’re leaving.”

 

She nods and picks at invisible pieces of thread on her pajama pants. They’re silent and all Molly does is lean her head against the staircase and listen to her dad breathe deeply. “Can I see her?” She asks after a few moments of silence.

 

She’s in the basement of the hospital that Molly knows she was born in and she’s allowed to stay there until her father comes back for her. Molly grips her dead mother’s hand as soon as her father leaves and doesn’t say a word. Not until her father comes back and practically drags her out of the morgue. “Goodbye mum.” She says to the dead woman. “I’ll see you again someday.” (If her mother were alive, she would reply, with a twinkle in her eyes, _but not anytime soon, my love. Not anytime soon._ But her mother isn’t alive and her corpse stays silent.)

* * *

“He taking you away from me.” Jim says.

 

They’re lying on her bed, facing one another. He’s too big for her bed but he curls into the fetal position and Molly mimics him, until they’re cradling one another. “I know.” She replies. Their foreheads are pressed against one another and brown eyes stare into brown.  

 

“I could kill him.”

 

“He’s my dad.” Molly snaps. She’s only ten but she’s unlike any ten year old she knows. Just like Jim is unlike any fifteen year old she knows. “I’ve already lost my mum.”

 

“He’s taking you away from me. From _me_.”

 

“Dad says it’s not safe anymore.”

 

Jim rolls his eyes. “I’ll protect you, Molly Hooper. I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you. You’re mine forever.”

 

She leans her head up and kisses the tip of his nose and he grips her waist tight. “One day…we’ll be together again and it’ll be like no time has passed at all.”

 

(It’s always like no time has passed at all when it comes to the two of them.)

* * *

She promises Jim that she’ll never forget him.

 

(It’s the first and only promise she ever breaks to him.)

* * *

Her dad moves them to just outside of London.

 

They live in a small house on a large piece of land. A little ways down the road there is woods and Molly always spends her spare time there.

 

Three months into their move, she’s in the woods when she hears muttering. She frowns and follows the voice, even though she can hear her dad’s voice in her head to walk away and go back home. _You mustn’t ever go with strangers, Molly. If anyone tries to talk to you, if anyone tries to touch you, you hit them. You hit them just like I’ve been teaching you, you understand yeah? I’ve lost your mum, Molly. I’d bloody lose my mind if I lost you too._

 

She can understand older strangers being dangerous. Molly isn’t stupid. But she really fails to see how this boy can be dangerous. He’s tall, much taller than Jim with pale skin, wild black curly hair and bright blue eyes. She doesn’t take a step back and she doesn’t gasp when his eyes snap towards her. He’s older than her, closer to Jim’s age. “Hello.” She says meekly.

 

He stares at her, eyes roving over her wildly before he snorts and shakes his head. “Leave.”

 

Molly’s anger flares. “No. It’s my woods too. I’m here all the time.”

 

“I don’t care. Leave, besides, hasn’t your father ever told you not to talk to strangers?”

 

“Yes.” She concedes. “But you’re not much danger are you? You’re just a boy and you’re not even doing anything bad. You’re just thinking. Not much danger in that, is there? Anyways, I’m Molly.” She pauses when he doesn’t say anything. “You need to tell me your name now and that way we won’t be strangers anymore.”

 

“Your logic is unsound and wrong.” There is slight hesitance on his part. “I am Sherlock Holmes.”

 

“There.” Molly beams, “that wasn’t so hard, was it? We’re not strangers at all anymore and really, you’re not so dangerous.”

 

(Molly has never been more wrong in her life.)

* * *

Sherlock Holmes becomes a permanent, if not sometimes annoying (but always infuriating) fixture in her life. Her dad doesn’t know about him, at least not really. If he did, he’d probably move them again, or at the very least, lecture her on boys and their nefarious minds.

 

Molly doesn’t mind nefarious. She doesn’t mind danger, in fact, sometimes (all the time), she’ll think of Jim and wonder what he’s doing. Is he doing anything interesting? Does he still remember her?

 

It shocks her one morning, when she wakes up and starts to forget the exact shade of brown his eyes are or how he looks like when his face is pulled together in concentration or how innocent and young he looks when he’s sleeping. (She locks herself in the bathroom that morning and sobs, muttering apologies to a boy who will never hear them.)

 

When she is thirteen, Jim Moriarty, is a vague memory of someone she used to know.

 

She is also thirteen when Sherlock takes her into London for the first time. She doesn’t know where they’re going; she just blindly follows him until they stop at a pool. The smell of chlorine hits her nose and she almost gags. There is laughter and cheers and jeers. “A swim meet?” She asks him, surprise in her voice. “Why are we here?”

 

He doesn’t answer her; instead, he pulls her along and sits on one of the bleachers in the crowd.

 

It happens all at once. She feels the hair on her skin stand to attention, the voices fade and there is a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that tells her she’s being watched. Then, she’s wrenched from that feeling when the cheers turn into horrified screams and Sherlock gets up to his feet, yelling that he’s been murdered.

 

It’s only then that Molly’s gaze lands to the pool where a boy (no older than Sherlock, no older than Jim) lay face first in the water.

 

There is pandemonium and everyone is running and crying and screaming. She loses Sherlock easily but all Molly can do is sit in her spot on the bleacher and watch as the boy floats like the deadweight he is. (This is the second dead body she sees.)

 

It’s after the body is taken away and after the police don’t listen to Sherlock saying that this boy – Carl Powers – has been murdered, that he finally realizes Molly is still in her spot, seemingly frozen. He rolls his eyes and gestures to the door. “Right. I’d forgotten, you’re a _girl_ and _girls_ hate things like this. It’s very inconvenient you know.”

 

“I don’t mind.” Molly tells him as she gets up and puts on her coat. “Dead bodies, I mean. Besides, he’s not my first dead body.” His eyebrows shoot up to his forehead and she reaches up and smoothes his wrinkles. “Have I stumped you? Has the great Sherlock Holmes been stumped by little Molly Hooper?” She laughs and it’s somehow bitter and not like her at all (distantly she remembers a boy with brown hair and brown eyes and an entirely possessively dark personality laughing the exact same way.) “Go ahead, deduce me. Who was my first dead body, Sherlock?”

 

He doesn’t hesitate. “Your mother.”

 

Molly smiles thinly. “You are a clever one.” She sighs, stops and looks to the side. She frowns. She could have sworn that she saw…she shakes her head and tries to get rid of that sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that tells her she’s just walked into something she has no idea how to get out of (something she doesn’t even know if she wants to get out of.) She shakes her head and looks at Sherlock. “Take me home, Sherlock.”

 

(It’s the first time, in a long time, she longs for her home in Belfast. It’s the first time, in a long time, she longs for Jim.)

* * *

 Sherlock doesn’t talk to her throughout the entire trip back. Molly doesn’t mind.

 

She’s used to being ignored by him.

 

She also knows it’s pointless for her to try and talk to him because by the blank look on his face and the way his hands are cradling his chin, she knows that he’s entered his _mind palace_.

 

(Molly sometimes wonders what goes on in that brilliant mind of his and finds her heart beating faster when she wishes he would think of her.)

 

_Well_ , she muses, _this can’t be good._

* * *

Her father isn’t home when lets herself in through the door. But she knows she’s not alone.

 

Before she can grab the gun that her father always keeps in the hiding space in the wall, a hand clamps over her mouth and she finds herself pressed against the wall.

 

She fights and kicks and attempts to scream until she hears his voice, “Molly, you kick like a fucking girl. We’re going to have to fix that.”

_Jim,_ she thinks wildly, _it’s just Jim._

 

(It’s always Jim.)

* * *

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

 

They’re lying on her bed, both curled into the fetal position and facing each other until their bodies blend into one another. She’s missed this. She’s missed him. She takes her time studying him, learning every new line on his face and the way his eyes seem so wild and untamed.

 

He gives her a sly smirk. “I don’t know what you mean.”

 

She giggles, even though she knows she shouldn’t. “At the pool, stupid. It was you. I felt you, you know.”

 

“Did you feel me before or after you decided to plaster yourself next to some giant twat?”

 

Molly frowns. “Sherlock? Why, Jim…are you jealous?”

 

“ _I_ don’t _get_ jealous. He’s a boy.”

 

“You’re just a boy.” She counters, even as she says it, she knows she’s wrong. Jim Moriarty has never been just an ordinary boy.

 

“No, Molly.” He says softly, pressing his nose against hers. “I’m not just any boy.”

 

They’re silent for a few moments, Molly breathing in while he exhales. “Oh, and Molly? If you ever call me stupid again, I _will_ kill you.”

 

At this, Molly laughs. It’s a full-blown laugh, one where she tilts her head back and feels it from somewhere deep in her stomach. It’s maniacal and untamed (just like Jim) “you, Jim Moriarty, are a very bad liar.”

 

(He’d never kill her. At least not really.)

* * *

Despite his protests, Sherlock Holmes is going to Uni.

 

Molly is sad to see him go, he’s her only friend and without him, she knows she’s going to be alone.

 

“It’s stupid.” He snarls, running his hands through his hair and pulling at his black curls. “Morons teaching morons and I have to sit through it. I should be out there solving crime since Scotland Yard is incompetent. I’ll delete everything anyways.”

 

“Do you delete much?” Molly asks him curiously.

 

He stops his tirade and looks at her. “Everything that doesn’t matter.”

 

“Would you ever delete me?” She doesn’t stop the question as it leaves her mouth.

 

“If you seize to be useful, then yes.”

 

If Molly had taken the time to dissect that sentence, if she would have taken the time to actually take _apart_ the words and _listen_ to what he said and _how_ he said it, if she would have taken the time to actually realize the _meaning_ of the words, then everything would be different.

 

(But Molly didn’t take the time and everything _is_ different.)

* * *

She’s fifteen and hasn’t seen Sherlock since he left and never looked back.

 

Molly thinks it’s for the best. Despite the way her breath hitches every time she thinks about his very blue eyes and the way his hands run through his hair.

 

He’s probably deleted her by now and the thought makes her heart clench in ways that she didn’t think was possible.

 

Jim visits her every so often. He doesn’t tell her much about where he’s been or where he’s going, all she knows is that he always comes back to her and curls onto her bed, just like they did years ago.

 

“I’m bored.” He admits to her one night.

 

“Then do something.” She tells him.

 

“I plan on doing something, but this something…Molly, it’s going to be _big_. It’s going to be _huge_.”

 

She bites her lip and stares at him. “What are you planning?”

 

“I’m going to tear this world apart and you’re going to help me.” _Won’t you, Molly? Won’t you help me? We’ll be back together,_ is everything he doesn’t say.

 

Then she thinks of Sherlock Holmes and wonders what he’s doing. She wonders if he’s bored and she wonders if he’s found someone else to keep him company when his mind becomes too much. Then she thinks about how she hasn’t heard from him in two years and how he’s probably by now, deleted her.

 

“It _has_ been a little boring, hasn’t it?”

 

They don’t say anything, just interlace their fingers until Molly doesn’t know where Jim begins and she ends.

* * *

She loses her virginity to some boy in her year.

 

His name is Eddie and he has light brown eyes.

 

When she closes her eyes, she imagines blue eyes and black wild curls. Then she imagines brown hair and dark brown eyes.

 

When she opens her eyes, it’s still just Eddie pumping his hips frantically into hers.

 

He comes with a shout and Molly is left feeling unsatisfied.

 

(Boys her age just don’t get it.)

* * *

When she gets home that night, she works her fingers inside of her until she’s panting heavily and imagining blue eyes and then dark brown eyes. She’s imagining black wild curls and then brown hair.

 

She imagines the only two men she’s ever wanted.

 

When she comes, it’s all over her fingers and she’s _still_ left feeling unsatisfied.

 

Then she laughs because she’s _so_ completely and utterly _fucked_.

* * *

Jim comes by and stares at her a bit longer and a bit harder than he usually does.

 

When he curls on her bed, pressing himself against her, his hands dig into her waist and she finds herself shivering.

 

“It’s starting to come together. We’re going to rule the world one day, Molly. You and me. Just you and me. _Always_ you and me.”

 

“Always.” She promises.

 

(It doesn’t surprise her that she actually means it.)

* * *

She’s eighteen and getting ready to go to Uni. Her father has been sick for a few years. He’s tried to hide it but Molly knows better. She knows her father better than he knows himself.

 

She knows when he’s going to die probably before he does.

 

He grabs her hand and grips it tightly. “Stay away from him.” He tells her in a gravelly voice. “My worst regret was ever letting him near you. Jim Moriarty will kill you, Molly. Stay away from him.”

 

Her father dies before she can tell him that she won’t let him kill her because she’ll kill him first.

* * *

There isn’t a funeral. Just a burial. It’s short.

 

It’s what her father would have wanted and Molly always strived to keep her father happy.

 

(She hopes he’s at peace now. She doesn’t believe in heaven and hell but she hopes wherever he is, he’s with her mum. But she mostly hopes that wherever they are, they _aren’t_ looking after her. Because she knows she’s going to become a monster and watching their precious little girl turn into a monster made by Jim Moriarty is the last thing any parent, especially _her_ parents, should bare witness to.)

* * *

Jim fucks her after she buries her father.

 

He rips her black dress off her body and tears her stocking from her legs. He’s unashamed by his erection straining against his trousers and he ruts against her like a madman. He growls and sighs with content when she runs her hands underneath his shirt and yanks his clothes off with unrestrained yearning.

 

He bites her neck, her jaw, her lips until she is writhing beneath him and clutching at his shoulders. When he takes her right nipple into his mouth, he sucks hard and Molly yelps and arches her back. (Her yelp echoes in the empty house.)

 

She sits up and pushes him on his back. She slides down his body, placing kisses all over his chest and lower, lower, _lower_ , until she sucks on his cock. One of his hands is in her hair, pulling and yanking, while the other is resting on her shoulder, blunt nails digging into her soft skin. It doesn’t take long to make him come and she swallows deeply, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand ( _thank you_ _Eddie for being worth_ _something_.)

 

He drags her back to him and twists them until she’s beneath him, she hears the ripping of a condom wrapper and then she feels nothing but bliss. He’s bigger than Eddie and stretches her but she feels full. She gasps and moans as his hands grip her waist tight enough to leave bruises and he slams into her. “Do you have any idea how _long_ I’ve wanted this?” He says, panting heavily into her ear. “Do _you_ have any idea how _long_ I’ve wanted- _needed_ -you like this? You’re _mine_ , Molly. _Mine_. All mine. _My Molly. Mine_.”

 

He wrenches strangled pleasured screams from her throat and she comes sobbing against him. “Always.” She practically weeps back. “God, Jim, always.”

 

(She _should_ feel guilty. She _should_ feel shameful but instead all she feels is satisfied and really, she’s never felt any better.)

* * *

By day, Molly is a Pathology student with a mousy personality, bright eyes and a cheerful smile.

 

By night, she’s helping create a network of criminals that will span across the world.

 

(She almost manages to forget about Sherlock Holmes, until one day, he reappears in her life and manages to fuck everything up.)

* * *

She sees him at a coffee shop. She almost doesn’t believe it’s him but the twisted and horrendous expression on his face as he takes a sip of his coffee is _so_ like him that she _knows_ it’s him and not some figment of her wild imagination.

 

She slides onto the chair in front of him and he looks up at her, eyes frowning. He looks tired. There are bags under his eyes and his fingers are twitching. _Drugs,_ she thinks. _The great Sherlock Holmes isn’t so great after all. He’s a man falling into temptation._ She decides to play a little game (because if Jim has taught her anything, it’s how to play a game properly.) She leans forward and presses a quick kiss to his lips.

 

(She ignores the electric feeling that shocks her to her very core when their lips connect.) “I did this because I’ve always wanted to know what you taste like. And now I do. You taste like cinnamon. You can delete this. I know you will.” And then she leaves, although the victorious smile on her face isn’t so victorious as it is concerning. Her lips still tingle from when she kissed him.

 

(She lied. Sherlock Holmes _doesn’t_ taste like cinnamon. He tastes like damnation and salvation.)

* * *

“Sherlock Holmes is following you.” Jim tells her one night.

 

“I know.”

 

“I can take care of him.”

 

“Let’s just see how this pans out, okay?”

 

“Fine. Spoil all my fun.”

* * *

A couple of days later after the kiss in the coffee shop, there is a knock on her door. She answers it; her textbooks sprawled out on living room table and couch. She’s wearing an oversized sweater and a pair of thick socks but nothing else. She’s not really surprised to see Sherlock on the other side of the door. She _is_ surprised that it’s taken him so long to confront her.

 

He stumbles into her flat and Molly knows that he’s high. She sighs and _tuts_ softly, oddly disappointed in him. She moves her textbooks and sets him down on the couch. His pupils are dilated and he’s breathing heavily, eyes wild and looking _everywhere_. She wonders what he can deduce about her. Does he know that she’s the epitome of evil? Or is he really like everyone else and sees what she wants people to see?

 

“Sherlock?” She asks him quietly.

 

His eyes snap towards her and he’s silent. “Molly. Molly Hooper.”

 

(Her traitorous heart swells with the knowledge that he _hasn’t_ deleted her.)

* * *

She cleans up his vomit when his body decides to fight against the drugs and she hands him off to his brother when he comes to collect him for his third stint at rehab.

 

His eyes seek out hers and she smiles reassuringly at him, her heart clenching painfully. “I’ll be here when you get out, Sherlock. I’ll be here.”

 

Mycroft Holmes stares at her with an unreadable expression on his face. (She’ll have to warn Jim know about him.)

 

(When they all leave, Molly goes into her bathroom, shuts the door and vomits from the guilt.)

* * *

“You saved my brother’s life, Miss Hooper.” Mycroft Holmes tells her softly, holding out the cheque that has more zeroes than Molly has ever seen in her life.

 

She doesn’t take it. (She never could stand charity.)

 

She shrugs and shuffles her feet. “Well, someone had to.”

* * *

She’s just finished her last exam when she enters her flat with the intent of falling face first onto her couch. She jumps and gasps when she sees her couch already occupied.

 

Sherlock Holmes looks better than she ever remembers him looking. His blue eyes are sharp as he takes everything in and rips everything apart.

 

“You look better.” She says and curses her voice for choking up. He nods absentmindedly and she sighs. “I’ll go make tea.”

 

She makes her way into the kitchen and goes to grab the kettle when suddenly; hands are on her hips and turning her around, pressing her into the counter. She gasps from the shock and grips the counter behind her for balance. She chances a glance at Sherlock and finds him studying her intently. “Sherlock?”

 

His hand latches onto her wrist, his fingertips pressing on her pulse point and she shivers from the contact. His pupils dilate and Molly knows it’s _not_ from any influence of drugs. He steps closer to her until she’s pressed against his chest and she breathes in deeply. She bites her lip and leans up, placing an open-mouthed kiss to his neck and is surprised when he shudders against her.

 

Without warning, the hands on her hips tighten and he leans down and captures her lips in a bruising kiss.

 

(He kisses her like a man who has been without water for years.)

* * *

Sherlock treats sex like an experiment. He uses his fingers and mouth to tease her into oblivion. He revels in her moans and little gasps and she knows that he likes it when she runs her hands through his hair and massages his scalp.     

 

He’s particularly fond of her nipples and Molly finds that she likes the way he sucks and bites her. He doesn’t hurt her, not in the way that Jim likes to (but never really means to) _no,_ instead, he takes his time with her.

 

When he does enter, she hears him gasp and then groan and she cradles him between her legs. He’s a little clumsy and she finds it endearing but she wants _more_ so she thrusts her hips and he answers in kind.

 

He clutches her hands that grip her headboard and pumps his hips in and out. He stretches out against her so that every part of his body is touching hers.

 

She’s whimpering, eyes staring into his. “Sherlock.” She moans, “oh God, _Sherlock_ ….yes… _please_ … _Oh God_.” She shudders and lets out a loud cry, her chest heaving from the strength of her orgasm.

 

He follows not even seconds later. His head falls to the crook of her neck. “I’ve never deleted you.” He admits.

 

(It’s as close to a confession as she’s ever going to get and she takes it, like a woman who hasn’t had water in years.)

* * *

“You fucked him.” There is something in Jim’s voice that makes her blood run cold.

 

“Yes, I did.”

 

“You were _mine_ first.”

 

She laughs because _really_? Sometimes Jim can be so _stupid_. “Jim, I’ve _always_ been _yours_.”

 

(This admittance is terrifying but the truth.)

* * *

The years pass and she alternates between fucking both Jim and Sherlock. She’s two different people around them (a Jekyll and Hyde.)

 

With Jim, she’s a leader, she’s an intelligent and cunning woman who is as ruthless as he is when it comes to the network.

 

With Sherlock, she’s the mousy medical student (and then Pathologist) who endures his insults, brings him coffee and body parts and stares admiringly at him when he beats corpses with his riding crop (she’s also _really fucking brilliant_ at what she does, pathology, not lying.)

 

(Sometimes, she can’t even tell who she is anymore and a sinking sensation settles in her stomach.)

* * *

John Watson comes into their lives on a rainy day. (Not that it’s surprising, it’s always raining in London.)

 

She likes him, despite her trying not to, but she still really wants to claw his fucking face off.

* * *

“I’ve met someone.” Jim says as he presses a kiss to her bareback and proceeds to kiss the bones of her spine.

 

“Like you met Seb?” Sebastian Moran is a loyal man. He does everything Jim asks him to and listens to Molly when she talks. He admires Molly but she knows that he hates her all the same.

 

“Nope. Someone for Sherlock.”

 

Molly pauses. “ _I_ am someone for Sherlock.”

 

Jim growls against her neck. “No. No, you’re _not_.” He takes a deep breath. “Her name is Irene Adler.”

 

“She sounds like a whore.” Molly snaps.

 

He laughs and it’s maniacal and loud. “Close. She’s a dominatrix. The best in the business. Let’s see if Sherlock Holmes can withstand temptation, shall we?” 

 

(Molly doesn’t say anything. She puts on a robe and sulks in the kitchen. Jim laughs at her, then gets angry at her and then kisses her. She gives in. She always gives in.)

* * *

Irene Adler is naked the first time Molly meets her.

 

Molly has a towel wrapped around her body, her hair wet from her shower and Irene Adler is sitting naked _and_ comfortable on Jim’s couch.

 

She eyes Molly appreciatively from her spot on the couch. She gets up and walks towards Molly. Molly lets her eyes roam Irene and she notes with brief jealously that Irene Adler is insanely beautiful.

 

“So,” Irene says, her voice sultry and low, she trails a finger along Molly’s collarbone. “You’re _Molly_. Jim’s told me _so_ much about you.”

 

“That’s funny,” Molly replies, “he’s told me nothing about you.” She turns away from Irene; her body shaking with barely controlled rage. (She doesn’t know whether she’s angry at Jim, Irene, Sherlock or herself.)

 

“I’ve strict orders to break Sherlock Holmes. Now tell me, Molly, why would Jim Moriarty want Sherlock Holmes so broken and beaten?”

 

Molly doesn’t dignify her with an answer.

* * *

“Oh, he’s angry.” Jim comments, clapping his hands. “How fantastic.”

 

“Was there a point in introducing the two of you? Because all I got out of that is that you’re apparently gay and I’ve gained three pounds. The tosser. It’s two and a half.”

 

Jim wrinkles his nose. “As much as I loathe to admit it, he’s right, Molly. You’ve gained three.”

 

Molly pushes him against the wall. “Why do I even put _up_ with you?”

 

Jim smiles brightly and Molly is taken aback by how young and innocent he looks. “Because without me, Molly, you’d be lost.”

 

( _Maybe,_ but without _her_ , Jim would be _nothing_.)

* * *

 “Let’s spend Christmas together.” It’s Sebastian who brings it up.

 

Molly and Jim look at each other before they peal into unrestrained laughter.

* * *

She would have been better off spending Christmas with Jim and watching Sebastian make eyes at the man he wants but will never have (because he belongs to Molly.)

 

Instead, she’s being insulted by the man she used to have sex with and is still in _love_ (or something close to it _)_ with (not that she’d ever admit it, but she supposes she just did, didn’t she? With her gift?)

 

He kisses her cheek and it burns through her skin.

 

Then a throaty moan fills the air.

 

(Molly still hates Irene Adler.)

* * *

Irene Adler isn’t dead. The body on the morgue slab isn’t hers. Molly should know. She’s seen her naked and she _is_ a doctor after all, her attention to detail can rival that of Sherlock’s.

 

Sherlock believes she’s dead. In fact, he’s convinced she’s dead because he identified her by _not-her-face_ and Molly’s face burns with anger and humiliation.

 

Molly wonders how Irene broke Sherlock and she wonders if she brought forth his deep gasps, the way Molly used to.

 

(Irene Adler isn’t dead but when Molly gets her hands on her, she most certainly will be.)

* * *

Irene’s first mistake is that she doesn’t leave London right away after Sherlock helps her escape.

 

Instead, she comes back and Molly is waiting.

 

Irene, for her part, doesn’t look surprised. If anything, she looks amused. “Oh, I _knew_ you were everything and nothing like Jim said you are.”

 

“No.” Molly admits, “I’m worse.”

 

“You know,” Irene muses, “you should show this side to him. He’d be interested, you know and by him, I mean Sherlock. You should really get away from Jim, dear. He’s nothing but poison.”

 

_Yes, but he’s my poison_ , Molly thinks viciously.

 

Irene sighs. “ _Nothing_ happened. Unfortunately. It _almost_ did but the oddest thing _did_ happen, I was so close to him, his lips a breath away from mine and darling, the things I could do to that man, but he said something, something that made me realize I don’t want to touch this-whatever _this_ is between the two of you, or really rather, the three of you-with a ten foot pole.” She pauses with dramatic effect and then her blood red painted lips twist into a smile, “he said your name. _Molly_.” She says it in the breathy way.

 

Molly is shaking. “You’re lying.”

 

Irene rolls her eyes. “About my failure? Please. Give me some credit.” She sighs and flicks invisible lint off of her impeccable suit. “Are you going to kill me now?”

 

“Go.” Molly says, her voice hoarse. “Get the fuck out of the country and don’t ever let me even _hear_ of your name ever again.”

 

Irene disappears from her sight.

* * *

She barges into 221b Baker Street. John is nowhere to be seen and Sherlock is sitting on the couch in his pajamas and blue silk robe. He lifts his head when he hears the commotion she makes. 

 

She takes off her shoes and makes her way over to him, settling into his lap and straddling his legs. He shifts into a more comfortable position, his hands finding their place at her hips and his eyes stare at her inquisitively. She takes a deep breath and kisses him deeply.

 

They don’t bother moving into the bedroom, they don’t even bother taking off their clothes. Molly hikes up her skirt, pushes aside her panties and Sherlock lowers his pajamas and pants and she slides him inside of her. She almost cries when she feels him in her again. She’s missed this. God, she’s missed _this_. She’s missed _him_.

 

“Sherlock,” she gasps, “ _Sherlock_.” She’s moving up and down and she revels in the way he’s staring at her, as if she’s some sort of unleashed Goddess. She shrieks loudly when she shatters around him.

 

“ _Molly_.” He breathes out her name as he takes hold of her hips and thrusts three times before he spills inside of her. “ _Molly_.”

 

She lays her head in the crook of his neck and sobs.

* * *

“Do you know what you to do?”

 

“Of course I do.” Molly replies. “I’m not stupid.”

 

“No,” Jim concedes, “you aren’t. You’re my greatest accomplishment.”

 

(And Jim, she now realizes, is her biggest mistake.)

* * *

Sherlock Holmes jumps from the roof of Bart’s hospital and with her help, he survives it.

 

Jim Moriarty shoots himself and with her help, he survives it.

 

(Molly Hooper is playing with fire. But everything has to burn eventually.)

* * *

She shelters Sherlock in her flat. She takes care of him and nurses him back to health.

 

(And bit-by-bit, he pieces her back together.)

* * *

It should bother her that Sherlock is off dismantling the network that she and Jim worked so hard to build.

 

(It doesn’t. Not really.)

* * *

Sherlock comes to visit her as often as he can. Sometimes, his body is bruised and broken and it’s her job to patch him up and she does so, without any hesitation and other times, he’s fine. Just lonely.

 

It always ends with their bodies pressing into one another and Molly often finds that she can’t tell where she ends and Sherlock begins.

* * *

She keeps a tally of who he’s killed and finds that two and a half years in, he’s killed almost everyone. Only a few remain. Sebastian being one of them (she knows Sebastian will be the _last_ of them, because this… _this_ is the _plan_.)

 

Jim visits her during a lull when Sherlock doesn’t. It’s easy to fall back into Jim’s embrace. (It’s easy to lose herself to the person she was always and always will be.)

 

Afterwards, they’re naked under her covers and curled into one another, their foreheads pressed against each other.

 

“He’s almost done.” She tells him.

 

He nods. “Quicker than I thought. _Our_ boy is so clever, isn’t he?”

 

She wants to tell him that Sherlock was _never his_ but _always hers_ but she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything and Jim falls silent too.

 

“Molly,” he says, snaking his arm around her waist and pulling her tightly against him. “I’m only going to offer this once; you can leave.”

 

She’s thought about it. _God_ , she’s thought about it, but the thought of leaving the only life she’s ever known, leaving the only man who has always been a constant to her, is terrifying. “I’ve already come this far, might as well finish it off.” She peers at him. “Aren’t you the least bit upset? He’s destroying everything you’ve worked so hard to build.”

 

“Everything _we’ve_ built.” He corrects her. He nuzzles his face in her neck, _“‘_ _Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire. That on the ashes of his youth doth lie.’”_

 

She grins. “William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73. Why that one?”

 

“Because,” he sighs, “everything burns eventually.”

* * *

One night, Sherlock comes to see her. It’s not odd that he does, but this night is entirely different than the rest.

 

He’s gentler with her than he’s ever been and takes her to new highs that she didn’t think was possible. She grips his shoulders and pleads and prays to Gods she doesn’t believe in anymore and sees nothing but him.

 

He’s still inside of her, even after they’re both spent, he’s nuzzling the underside of her breast and murmuring against her skin.

 

She frowns. “What? Sherlock, what are you saying?”

 

He looks up at her and she’s taken aback by the ferocity in his gaze. “Stay with me,” he croaks. “I can help you.”

 

Oh. _Oh_. She looks away from his gaze and wonders how long he’s known and why he’s never said anything. She wonders what’s going through his mind. She sighs and shifts and her shifting causes him to harden inside of her again. “I’m beyond saving, Sherlock.”

 

He’s a bit rougher, a bit more desperate with her this time around and she kisses him until they both are gasping from lack of oxygen.

 

(He tastes of successful damnation and failed salvation.)

* * *

She’s not given much of a warning, just a mere message saying _it’s time._

 

Sebastian drags her up where it all begins on the roof of Bart’s hospital.

 

Sherlock is there and when he sees her with a gun pressed to her head, he falters, just for a moment, but he falters nonetheless.

 

Sebastian is calm, cool and collected. He knows his part, the one that Jim wrote and rewrote for him and Sebastian, like a good little soldier, follows orders to the letter.

 

She hears the door to the roof slam open and she sees John Watson and Greg Lestrade come into view.  

 

Everyone is talking, there is screaming and they’re garnering a crowd from below.

 

Molly doesn’t listen to it, she doesn’t listen to _any_ of it, instead she’s staring at Sherlock who is staring back at her with just a little bit of desperation and a whole lot of pleading. She thinks back to when she was younger and she met a strange boy older than her and became his pseudo-friend. She remembers everything they’ve ever said to each other and she thinks that really, in the end, this is his fault anyways. If he didn’t take her to the pool that day, she would have never crossed Jim’s eyes and maybe, just _maybe_ , she would be free and less of a monster.

 

_But that’s a lie, isn’t it, Molly?_ Her mind taunts her. _Jim would have come around eventually. Sherlock just sped up the process._ Because really, she’s Jim’s and Jim is hers and he would _kill_ to protect _her_.

 

(Even if it means killing her.)

 

“Let her go, Moran. Just let her go.” She can hear Sherlock say.

 

Sebastian lets his head fall back and he laughs. It’s a deep laugh; a maniacal laugh and she can almost imagine Jim teaching him how to laugh like that (or maybe Sebastian is crazy, they’re all crazy, aren’t they?) “I _can’t_. Can’t you _see_ , Sherlock? I _can’t_.”

 

It happens simultaneously. Molly feels a prick in her neck, she hears two gunshots, she feels something rip through her body and then darkness overwhelms her and she welcomes it with open arms.

 

(Before she succumbs to the darkness, she hears a deep baritone voice roar her name and for once in her life she regrets _everything_.)

* * *

When she wakes up, it’s to a pounding headache and sunshine.

 

She’s in a bed, a large one at that and she opens her eyes despite her body’s protests.

 

Jim is there, curled into her and tracing the gunshot wound, mere inches from her heart.

 

“It worked.” He tells her. “Now, let’s build ourselves another network, except a bit more stronger this time, yeah? Beginners mistakes and all that shit.”

 

“Sherlock knows you’re still alive and by now, he’s probably realized that I’m not really dead either.” She says groggily.

 

Jim smiles and then presses his nose against hers. “Oh, my darling, I counted on that. ‘ _From the ashes of ruins, we’ll rise once more.’”_

 

Molly frowns and groans at the pain in her head and in her entire body. “I don’t know who that’s by.”

 

“Oh.” He says gleefully, “That’s a _Moriarty_ original.”

 

(Molly laughs despite the pain because if she doesn’t laugh then she’ll cry.)

* * *

(Jim Moriarty is not her blood relative. He never was and never will be. Which is why she doesn’t feel guilty about neglecting to tell him that by this time, in London, a Consulting Detective is piecing together the clues she left for him.)

 

Life is a game and this game, _this_ is one game that will be played by _her_ rules and she _will_ end up victorious.

* * *

Her story starts and ends with a birth.

 

(She never did things normally.)

**Author's Note:**

> Major major thanks to everyone who reads this! All of you are awesome. Thank you so much for your support on everything I write. You all make me so freaking happy. MAD LOVE AND RESPECT FOR ALL OF YOU.


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